A Vacation Miracle

Wednesday, the 12th of July, was the very first real Maine day of our vacation. By this I mean it was the first day that felt like Maine is supposed to feel. The weather was transcendent, bright blue sky, a steady refreshing southerly breeze in our faces all day, with not a hint of humidity. Consequently I made the decision to play golf in the morning.

Although the conditions were perfect and I was paired with a delightful couple from Marietta, Georgia, I played terribly—like a blind man with epilepsy. I had one birdie and four pars and a host of other scores so horrifying that I didn’t even bother keeping my score. But what made this the worst golfing experience I’ve had in years was not the level of my play, but what happened to me just after I shook hands with Wayne and Kathy as we walked off the 18th green. I reached in the left pocket of my shorts to retrieve my wedding band and found nothing. 

Ever since I got married nearly 40 years ago I have always removed my wedding band before a round of golf. The reason is because if I leave it on I end up with a blister. Yes, yes…I know its because I grip the club too tightly, but it is what it is. So, before I play I take the band off and place it in my left pocket—never the right, always the left. Sometimes I perform this ritual in the parking lot, mostly I do this on the first tee box, occasionally I remember as I’m walking down the first fairway. But…I always remove it. So, when I reached in the pocket and discovered it missing, something like panic and nausea visited me simultaneously. 

I had played with very nice rented clubs so the first thing I did was search every nook and cranny of the voluminous bag. Zilch. Then I walked back to the first tee box, since I was 70% certain that I had removed the ring before hitting my first tee shot (one that I hit out of bounds left, incidentally). The very kind starter along with the threesome on the first tee—all men—dropped everything to scour the area. They all gave me knowing looks of solidarity, knowing that if I didn’t find that ring I was sure and truly a dead man walking. One of them even mumbled, “losing your wedding band is one thing…losing it while playing golf is a f**king disaster” After an exhaustive search we found nothing. As I trudged back to the clubhouse the futility of my situation began to dawn on me. There was a very real possibility that I did, in fact, place that ring in my pocket on the first tee box, which means it could have slipped out of said pocket anytime I reached in there to remove my cellphone throughout the round…probably three times that I could recall. Since the entire round I walked 5.6 miles up hill and dale, there was literally no possible chance anyone was ever going to find that ring. I explained my nightmare to the woman at the clubhouse cash register who looked at me as if looking at a man condemned to die. I gave her my name and cellphone number on the no chance in hell possibility that somebody found it. She wrote it down carefully and posted it on the bulletin board with feigned optimism, then briefly touched my arm as I turned to leave. “You never know, dear.” That’s Yankee speak for…bless your heart.

I was not ready for the genuine grief I experienced while driving back to camp. I wasn’t really worried that Pam would kill me. I simply felt so much anguish over the fact that I had lost my wedding ring. I am not a jewelry guy. In fact, that wedding band is my only ring, my only any kind of adornment. But a wedding ring isn’t just a piece of jewelry, its part of who you are. It tells the world that you are married and that there is someone else out there who you would kill for. And now, mine was laying somewhere on the grounds of Rockland Golf Club, most likely in deep rough!

I got back to the cabin and tidied up a bit then joined Pam on the dock. No. I did not immediately tell her. I gambled that she wouldn’t notice, perhaps for days. That would give me time to craft an acceptable narrative. I merely gave her a kiss and sat down in the Adirondack chair next to her soaking up the perfect Maine day.

Then my cellphone rang. 

I didn’t answer. In the two weeks I’ve been here I have received no fewer than 20 random calls from unknown numbers from people trying to sell me this thing or that. If it was important they would leave a message. This one did…

“Mr. Dunnevant? This is Beverly at Rockland Golf. Just wanted you to know that someone found your wedding ring. I’ve put it here at the front desk. You can pick it up anytime you want. Congratulations!”

I turned to Pam with a sudden burst of confidence in my communicative abilities. “You are never going to believe what happened to me today at golf!!” She listened respectfully without expression then when I was done said, “Good thing you found it. No way you were going to get rid of me that easily!”

Week One. A Summary

We begin week two with indifferent weather. Clouds have dominated so far, although we’ve had a few gloriously sunny days mixed in. You take what comes on the lake, the good and the bad, while never having to worry about the ugly because there is none. The highlights of Week One are as follows…

Yesterday I fished this spot to within an inch of its life. Everything I threw at it, they devoured. Must have caught a dozen or more 1-2 pound bass in just 45 minutes. Since the water levels here are quite high I had to stand on the ledge of the dam, feet submerged in very cold water. Small price to pay. Pam would have had a heart attack watching me shuffle along the edge back and forth being careful not to slip and fall, busting my assets. But there’s just something about this spot. Its at the far south end of the lake, just over a mile from the cabin, with no sign of civilization anywhere, just the roar of the rushing water. 

I’ve plowed through three books already, thanks to the clouds. Two John Le Carre spy novels, and a third spy-themed WWII home front novel by Mary Anna Evans. Now I’ve started a third, an Eric Larson spellbinder about the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 called The Devil in the White City. Fabulous.

Then there’s the girls in my life. These two…

Safe to say they are both living their best lives right now. Lucy’s days are a blur of fishing with dad, sniffing the treasure trove of smells wafting off the lake, and swimming for literally hours along side Mom on her paddle board. She has no complaints about Summer Dreams, has designated six different locations around the house as her official sleeping spots, like she owns the place.

Then there’s this beauty…

She will probably kill me for posting this photograph. Up here she does nothing with her hair, just washes it and lets it dry on its own. She hates it, I absolutely love it, mostly because I think she looks amazing but partly because it takes off 45 minutes from her prep time getting ready in the morning! Once again Pam is the queen of the lake. She has established herself as a paddle boarding fixture along with her morning kayak trips. She has organized the kitchen like a boss, prepared killer meals and spent hours and hours cross-stitching her heart out…

Last night we closed out the week by going to church…kinda. We sat down on the sofa and watched Hope’s live stream on YouTube. We saw Isaac playing his guitar on stage, then listened to Pete deliver the message from The Beatitudes. Looked like they had a packed house.

I have no earthly idea what the plan is for today and neither does Pam who at the moment is sound asleep as any self-respecting vacationer should be at this hour. Once she’s up something will come to us. Maybe brunch at The Hoot and a trip into Belfast?

Art, Books and Strawberries

So, yesterday was an adventure day since there were two local Festivals afoot, one in Lincolnville and the other in Camden. We left the cabin around 9:30. To get to Camden you first have to drive through Lincolnville, which was hosting their annual Strawberry Fest. I had to stop for gas and the only gas station available was at Drakes Corner Store which offered regular for $3.59 without any identifying brand name for the gasoline you bought. I simply had to take their word for it as I tried to figure out their circa 1960’s pump handle. Drakes is a mile or so outside of town and served as the rendezvous point for the Strawberry Fest Parade. The parking lot was filled with fire trucks, streamer-festooned pickup trucks and one flatbed containing a gigantic plastic lobster. Since the proceedings weren’t scheduled to begin until 10:00, we made the fateful decision to head in to Camden for the Arts and Books Festival and catch the Strawberry deal on the way back. Unfortunately, when we did, the excited lady at the Community house informed us that for the first time in Strawberry Fest history, they had been wiped out by noon! Every strawberry, every upside down cake, every muffin, biscuit, loaf of bread, every cake, pie and scone—all gone, a complete sellout. even the strawberry ice-cream sandwiches had been devoured by the great unwashed who had descended on this sleepy town like a plague of locusts. The only evidence that there even HAD been a strawberry festival was the giant red flags draping from the town hall windows…

In retrospect however, this shocking turn of events was the only thing that saved me from bankruptcy because of what transpired roughly between the hours of 10 o’clock and noon in Camden.

After a lovely breakfast at the Camden Deli, Pam and I attended the annual Arts and Books Fair. This Fair is no stranger to us, both of us having fallen for its considerable charms many times before. Basically, all the streets and grounds around the Camden library are filled with white tents featuring artists and craftsmen from all over Maine selling their wares…

The misty conditions did nothing to dampen the crowds. Pam’s eyes had that certain dangerous sparkle they get when she is surrounded by art. Its funny since she has never been a museum girl, but you put her at an art fair where she can listen to the actual artist explain how they created their work and what their inspiration was, and she goes into something very much like a trance. Unfortunately, this trance-like state involves a great deal of credit card usage. When she found this one particular booth I thought she was going to wipe them out! “Oh, I love this! And look at that!! I just have to have that!!

By the time she was done, she nearly had. Pam and the artist have a lunch date for next Thursday!

But she wasn’t done. I’m guessing that in total there were close to 100 booths at this Fair and my wife toured them all. When she finally was satisfied with her haul on Day 1 (this is a two day event—gulp), I was carrying around a bag of stuff heavy enough to give me shoulder cramps. I got a text from Capital One warning me of excessive use of my card, and wanted confirmation that it was indeed us. I relied with…Pam at Arts and Books Fair in Camden. They responded with a knowing…Never Mind. 

On the positive side, Pam did get an early start on 2023 Christmas shopping.

What We do When it’s Hot

So far I’ve told you, faithful reader, what we do here when it rains.  Today I will inform you about what we do when its hot in Maine, or HIM for short. First of all a definition of what exactly qualifies as hot. Yesterday’s high temperature in Searsmont was 89. While depending on where you live and humidity levels this might not seem particularly severe as hot goes. There have been many summers in Short Pump where any day not in the 90’s would seem pleasant by comparison. Not here. In Maine high 80’s qualifies as brutal heat for one simple reason—the absence of air conditioning. Take last night for example.

By the time dinner time rolled around Pam had already fled the premises to Belfast for an iced coffee and AC time at Reny’s. Heat is my wife’s mortal enemy, the bane of her existence. It is the only force in the universe capable of turning her to the dark side. She got out of the shower yesterday afternoon and immediately found herself covered in sweat. I knew she wasn’t long for the cabin. Her two hours reading and drinking iced coffee lounging in the soft seating inside Dunkin worked wonders for her psyche. She returned to the lake her delightfully reliable self. 

At this point I knew that there was no way she was going to cook anything that required her to turn on the stove. I wisely volunteered to head over to Fraternity General to pick up one of their fabulous pizzas. Since it was near six o’clock I know from experience that you need to call first, then allow thirty minutes before making the 3 mile drive to pick it up. I called again and again for ten minutes and the line was busy every time. Throwing caution to the wind, I drove there without ordering first. Upon arrival I noticed a sign on the door:  Due to extreme heat, the kitchen is closed to anything that requires an oven. Cold sandwiches available.

Now, I know what some of you are thinking…Oh, thats adorable! Poor Mainers can’t even handle a couple of warm days!! Nothing could be further from the truth. Fraternity General is a 100+ year old colonial structure built without air conditioning. The kitchen sits in a windowless, low ceiling section of the first floor. It is roughly 10x12 and has two pizza ovens and one regular oven. The girls take your order at the counter. When I walked in the place last night it was 85 or so outside with a lovely breeze that had come up. But inside that store it had to be 100. The two cooks had bright red faces covered in sweat. I noticed on the glass covered turn table a piping hot pepperoni pizza that looked of relatively recent origin. “Can I have five pieces of this one?” I asked. I walked out with the last pizza of the day, feeling like the great white hunter.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Pam had lowered the blinds across the front of the house to shade the interior of the cabin from the bright reflection of the setting sun now blinding us from the surface of the lake. But now the wind had picked up nicely and she had turned on every ceiling fan available and had the floor fan on the maximum speed. It sounded like the tarmac at LaGuardia but it was cooler. The hardest part of a HIM day are the hours between 5 and 9.

The rest of our HIM day was spent on the water. I fished, kayaked, and floated around on the float. Pam spent lots of time escorting Lucy around the lake on her paddle board. I swam…a lot. It was delightful. Today, the weather people are unanimous in their opinion that another scorcha is in the works. High temperature of 87 with a 40% chance of thunder storms late in the day. After that it looks like we will be in the 70’s for the next four days.

Freaking Poker Game!!

The weather here has turned sunny and fair for the last couple of days and this has been the occasion of much celebration here at vacation central. With the appearance of the sun our schedule becomes dominated by the lake. We spend almost all of our time either in it, on it, or gazing at it. What follows are just a few examples.

Around 6:00 am I took my morning coffee on the dock with Lucy who patiently waited for me to stop Lolly-gagging around and start fishing already. This was my view…

By 9:00 or so I was ready to head out in the kayak for a more serious fishing excursion a mile and a half north of our dock. Shortly after heading out I encountered a traffic jam when I met up with this beautiful woman…

Incidentally, the White House in the background of this photograph has been a consistent irritant to me ever since its construction several years ago. We have watched it’s progress each year with a mixture of admiration and resentment. Because it sits on an island, most of the heavy work gets done in the winter when the lake freezes over and heavy loads of lumber and such can be driven across the surface of the water by truck. The final result of all the work is a fine house with commanding views. The thing that sticks in my craw however is the way in which the owner of this house came about obtaining the large parcel of land where his lovely house rests—he won it in a poker game. I must admit to a small degree of bitterness at this mindless, haphazard stroke of luck. Every time I paddle by the place I mumble to myself, “freaking poker game!!” But, what’s done is done.

At this point I feel it necessary to introduce a new physical ailment that has visited my rapidly deteriorating body. I think there might be something wrong with my left hip. Whenever I find it necessary to sit down for anything longer than thirty minutes, like driving long distances or fishing from a kayak, the offending hip begins to protest rather violently. The pain is quite intense and gets progressively worse the longer I go. So yesterday’s two and a half hour expedition was a very bad idea—a literal pain in my ass. Half way in I had to find a spot to park the kayak so I could go for a swim in the cold water. Had I not I doubt I would have made it back to the dock. So, for the rest of my time here I will limit my fishing paddles to less than two hours and will make generous use of muscle relaxers, heating pads, and this nifty device I got for Christmas…

Even in THIS picture, the Poker House mocks me!

But, enough about me! On lake days I have a steadfast companion. Miss Lucy had a day of days yesterday. She swam about all morning at Pam’s side as Pam took the paddle board out for a spin. She literally never tires of swimming. Could stay out there all day if we let her, and we nearly did. Later in the afternoon  we took the swim floats out and Lucy came out with us stopping every now and then to rest her head on my float so she could let her paws hang free in the water. She then closes her eyes and lays there taking a snoozle while I scratch her head. Finally after a very long day of great fun she laid down on the dock looking like a furry life guard…

Around 5:30, we drove into Camden for dinner at Sea Dog and ice cream at Riverducks. Our food and our view at dinner was first rate, and Riverducks never disappoints…

Who knows what today will bring?

What Do We Do on Rainy Days?

The last couple of days have been very rainy with lots of fog and flood warnings flying about. The forecast is for more of the same until mid-week. Everyone around here says that its been like this for at least six weeks. So what are we doing? Yesterday was fairly typical for a rainy day.

We decided to head into Camden for breakfast at The Deli. Its nice when the owner of the place greets you by your first name despite the fact that he hasn’t seen you in seven months! The blueberry pancakes were sublime along with some delicious coffee…

Then we putzed around the damp streets for a while stopping in to some of our favorite stores. On our way back to the lake we stopped at Lincolnville General Store to pick up some coffee from our favorite Maine photographer, Dan Dishner, owner of Coffee on the Porch—Camden. The store is an absolute beauty.

But, it ain’t cheap. One pound of coffee cost me $16! Oh well. Its only money, then you die.

Right across the street from the General Store is a place called the Red Cottage. Since we drive through Lincolnville Center on our way into Camden, we have watched this place blossom from a run down shack to the loveliest little shop you’ve ever seen over the past four years. But we never stopped to check it out until yesterday.

The proprietor, Janis Kay and her husband saw potential in this shack several years ago and put in a bid to buy the place. They outbid a contractor who was planning to tear it down and build a new house. After four years of hard work and lots of sweat equity, the Red Cottage is a gem. Pam saw several things she just had to have, and we made a new friend.

For the rest of the day and night Pam worked on her latest cross-stitch project. I enjoyed a world class nap and nearly finished my first book of the trip, John Le Carre’s The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. When it was time for dinner Pam whipped up some tacos and a salad made from vegetables she picked up at a farm stand in Belmont. After dinner, courtesy of Roku and the wonders of technology, we settled down on the sofa with Miss Lucy to watch the Livestream of Hope’s worship service from yesterday morning. At that point the rain was coming down in torrents, slashing the metal roof above us and making a sound like none other. This morning we woke to 60 degrees.

I imagine that today will be much the same. Lots of reading, a little fishing with Lucy down on the dock. We might wander into Belfast later on. Or not.

Here

I was the first to spot the green bridge arching in the distance through the fog at one o’clock in the afternoon. But this was real fog, not the noxious Canadian smoke we had been driving through for two days. Pam took a photograph, like she does every single time we pass under the green iron rails of the Piscataqua river bridge. She says that crossing the bridge is when vacation starts. Once on the other side she busied herself with making a grocery list. She will want to make a quick run into the Belfast Hannaford before the Saturday crowd descends.

By the time we exited off 295 just before Augusta, the sun had come out. The sky was a radiant blue, the temperature an idyllic 74. Despite the sharp pain radiating through my left hip and hamstring—an unfortunate physical staple of post-60 long distance driving life—I felt my spirits soaring. We were less than an hour away. Lucy, as always, lay curled up in her space in the back of the car, oblivious to the glorious sunshine. Then, I made the turn onto New England Road, ten minutes away from the lake. Lucy stood up and began sniffing the air, big goofy smile on her face, staring out of the rear window, ears perked up expectantly. How could she know?

Its hard to explain the feeling that comes over us when we see the lake for the first time every year. Quantabacook can’t be seen from any State road, one of the few Maine lakes for which this is true. In fact you don’t even see it when you first pull off the dirt road into the driveway. You have to clear the overhanging trees first. But once you do, there it is, bathed in sunlight, the water glistening as if on fire. Dan the Man from Ducktrap Kayaks has delivered as promised. There are brand new Adirondack chairs on the dock. The girls at On The Water In Maine had dropped off the package that Pam had shipped to their office—something she had bought for the trip but worried would arrive at home after we had already left. They are used to this with us. One year Pam left her contact lenses at home. Another year it was all her bathing suits! We don’t even have to ask tell them anymore. “Hey, you guys have a package. We can bring it out there or you can pick it up the next time you’re in town.” Customer Service isn’t some strange and novel concept to OTWIM. Its how they roll.

I texted this photograph to Tif, the owner of OTWIM, upon our arrival. She replied with one of her own from her front yard on Owl’s Head, a forty minute drive down the road…

“ ohhh. You have sun!!” She said.

“Well, I specifically ordered it for my arrival,” I replied.

I woke up this morning at 5:20. I always wake so early up here. Pam is still asleep and Lucy has hardly acknowledged my presence…

Yes, we cover the sofas here with her favorite blankets, she being a creature of quite specific habits. Plus we don’t want her getting dog hairs all over the furniture. Summer Dreams is such a delight. Anyone lucky enough to own a place this lovely deserves to have it taken care of. If this place or Loon Landing ever come up for sale I would write a check so fast, Wells Fargo would have a hernia.

Last night we slept with the windows opened. Its foggy out and cool. The only sounds are the occasional loon call, a persistent chickadee and the pulsing bellow of a bullfrog at the water’s edge. I’ve finished my first cup of coffee. The fog seems to be lifting, the sky  brightening. Or maybe it’s just my imagination.